I have had this idea for awhile now and am curious as to if anywhere does this or others opinions on this. I am in a somewhat unique situation where i do tandems during the day at our small 182 club. The only people at the dz are me, my wife, pilot and tandem student/'s.

My idea would be to video a tandem ground training and have future tandem students watch that after they have watched waiver video. I am thinking of this as a time saver as i do everything for there jump. Pack, the jump, manifest, video and waiver.

My typical ground training consists of introduction of myself, bring them to plane to talk about hooking up, opening door and exit. then inside hanger to go over arch, the rest of skydive, and the landing. I spend a good amount of time doing this with everyone. I would like to video each section while editing in real life examples of each.

If i was to try this I would still have students repeat back to me everything they learned in vid, practice arch a few times and give a oppurtunity to ask any and all questions they may have.

Just thinking of this i see pros and cons.

Pro - time saver. they watch video while i pack

cons - lack of the personal connection that i find to be very beneficial. also not giving you as much time with a person to try and feel out if they may give you problems or are not quite understanding something.

I'm certain you don't give exactly the same briefing to every student in exactly the same way each time. You probably vary how you deliver sections of the briefing and lengths of time for each based upon how you perceive the student is taking it in... Are they glazing over for the exit bit? You'll repeat it to make sure they have it, or you'll change your tone to emphasise certain points you want them to get.

Sometimes people just need things explaining in a different way to get it...

All of the above aside - imagine you were a whuffo turning up for your first skydive. You've been excited about it for days and posting about it on facebook. You arrive at the DZ and are told 'read this waiver and sign it, then watch this video...' I'd feel a bit cheated out of my big day - wouldn't you?

Pitt Meadows has been using a tandem ground school video for the last decade. After waivering and watching the instructional video, a TI walks them out to the mock-up to confirm that they paid attention to the video and practice the three most important body positions.

A video helps cover your @@$ legally because every student heard and watched the same block of instruction.

Everyone watches the video and then gets the waiver. The video is extensive and goes over all phases of the jump.

I get my students and I test what they recall from the video.

"Do you remember the banana, ballerina, shrimp from the video?" I ask them what that is, and why we have them do it. Then I explain to them an arch, how it is a neutral body position, and show them how I arch. Then I get them on the creeper and get them building the muscle memory.

We discuss the exit and hook up before hopping on the truck, and once more before getting on the plane.

I think it is excellent. It helps them take in more of my personal training because they have already been introduced to the concepts, and I get a chance to test them. Then my training clarifies and corrects.

Also in the rare times that I am told to drop the rig in the field and meet the student at the truck they at least have some idea of what is going on, and I am not starting from scratch when I explain things before boarding the plane.

The only thing that I would add is that you should not give them the paper waiver until after the video waiver and instructional video are complete. Our TIs are often on the airplane, and generally no manifest person, so the other staff (IAD Instructors, Coaches) will often get the video going for the tandem students. Once in a while someone, against my instruction, will hand the students the waiver, and instruct them to watch the video first, then fill out the paper. 90% of them will be filling out the paper waiver while the video is running, they just can not resist. When I see this, I'll ask who did it, and point out that what's going on. I see this as a legal risk, they'll say later "I didn't actually watch the video, I was filling out my paperwork."

We do it here at Paradive for years & it works well they first fill the paperwork & after all is set they see the video.

It helps the passengers to see & understand the tandem jump process from training to landing - the video have verbal briefing as well.

It DOES NOT replace the ground training we do before the jump after we harness the passengers.

At the ground training site before we start the phisical/verbal training we ask the passengers if the watched the video & understood the process.

Each passenger has his own points to be covered in the ground training & the only place the TI's can see that is at the ground training site & this is the right time to fix or to extra brief these passengers / points.

The ground briefing / training is done by a TI ONLY & specific info. regarding a specific passenger will be told to the TI taking that specific passenger.

The ground training video Does Not Replace the verbal & phisical training - it is just a trainig aid.

Here we use the video for the last two or three years and it is a huge plus for us here I explain. Since we do between 130 and 150 tandems/day during the week ends TI are very busy and for that reason sometimes they cut corners and forgot some little things, like asking the passengers if they had any medical issue that we should know like a dislocated shoulder, a bad knee, sinus problem ect. Of course all these questions are in our waiver that they are ask to read and sign. But we all know they are anxious, nervous and want to jump right away, so not all of them read it carefully. The reason why we didn't do that before is because we were afraid not to be able to keep there attention from the start to the end of the video. When we decide to go forward with this project we decided 1. To built a mini stage outside, with a big screen and a roof all that good for 30 persons dedicated only for the tandem video and in a quiet place. 2. We ask one of our partner that is a very well known actor here to be the narrator in order to keep the attention of everybody all the time. 3. We put everything that Minister Of Transport is asking like a map of the plane with all the emergency exit, fire extinguisher and ELT as well as every details instructors might forgot. Having all that in mind we work hard to put all that together and finally we went to a professional studio to end up with a 7 minutes video. We also have an hostess that welcome our customers there and have them sign the waiver after word. After that a TI do show and ask them to practice the body position on a bench, with a group of 25 that takes 3 to 4 minutes max.

When we decided to go that way I told my partners that because of the high tandems volume we have here if we go that direction we have to take our time to make sure we do it wright the first time, thats what we did ..and it work fine for us.

3. We put everything that Minister Of Transport is asking like a map of the plane with all the emergency exit, fire extinguisher and ELT as well as every details instructors might forgot.

I know they require that sort of stuff posted in the aircraft, but passengers don't need to know about the ELT or extinguisher, do they?

Still, TC does care about exits and seatbelts. We skydivers may think it bloody obvious how to work a skydiving door and an aircraft seatbelt. But TC regs do require that passengers of aircraft in general know where the exits are and how to use them. It may also be necessary for passengers to know how the seatbelts work, given that they aren't automotive push button style. So the idea of putting such things in the video is good.

Do you still show a manufacturer's waiver video too? Or do you skip it because (a) we're in Canada so tough luck for Bill Booth (if that's the gear you use), and (b) because you don't feel it is worth doing a French voice-over for the majority of your customers.

Just curious. I'm always interested in hearing how well-organized DZ's like Voltige are run.

ELT and fire extinguisher may not be mandatory for passengers but are for airplane flight attendant and since instructors, coaches and regular up jumpers are consider like that compare to first time tandem student that's why we had that. Yes it is mandatory in Canada to posted placard of all exits, fire extinguisher and ELT in our planes. Also about the seat belts I forgot to mention that it was in the video. Also all TI show there passenger where they are attach and how to get rid of it in the case of an emergency to each and every passenger prior to take off. We don't use UPT waiver video anymore because it was not up to date at all with airplane we don't have here and not in our language. But we hire an attorney that is also an experience skydivers to put together our waiver that all skydivers have to sign before boarding our planes. That include the fact that airplanes...do crash and all the names of rig manufacturers, airplanes and land owners ect.

By the way I forgot to say that our video is subtitles in english. With that system our TI have little bit more time to spend with there passengers and also some time to grap a sandwich when they need it. Even then the turn around is very quick specially at this time of the year where airplanes perform very well in cold air.